SLY COOPER AND THE DIMENSION KEY (Updated 11-3-19)
by thegraeghostguy
Summary: POST-SLY 4. The Cooper Gang is at it again, but only thanks to an invention called the "Dimension Key" created by a mysterious mad scientist from another dimension. The gang has to find one another again, fix the rifts in time and space, and stop this new evil brooding in the dark. First Stop: Current-Day Paris and Ancient Egypt! CHAPTER 2 OUT NOW! (crit./sugg. welcome)
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

In the dark of night, storms rolled throughout the Parisian skyline. Lightning struck wherever it well pleased and at an ungodly time of 2:38 AM, Bentley was still awake on his latest invention. It had been about 6 and a half months since Sly's disappearance after their battle with Le Paradox and Bentley was still desperately theorizing the possibilities of what could have happened to his old pal.

"No, no, NO!" cried Bentley, after a spark signaled to him that his contraption was refusing to cooperate. He threw the gadget onto his workbench in frustration and promptly scratched out his plans for the device, crumpling the graph paper and shouting in anguish. "It's wrong. ALL. WRONG." he whimpered as his grief overtook him for the first time in a few days. All of a sudden, he heard a knock on the door. "Who is it?" Bentley asked gruffly, not caring who it was that he was about to turn away in an instant.

"Bentley? It's me." called a sultry Spanish voice from the door.

"Go away, Carmelita. I'm not in the mood for visitors," replied Bentley as he turned back to his drawing board to work on a new model for his device.

"Oh, come on, Bentley! I haven't heard from you in weeks. I'm starting to worry that you're getting too cooped up inside your shell." The Inspector replied, "Don't make me get a search warrant."

"Ha-ha, Carmelita. Between your idle threats and turtle humor, I would have thought you'd have good news." retorted Bentley.

"Who says I didn't?" replied Carmelita. Bentley thought about it. It was fair to say that Carmelita took Sly's disappearance almost as hard as the gang did, but if any progress was going to be made, it would have been better to turn her away. It was raining, though, and Carmelita could have caught a cold, especially in that weird get-up of hers. Bentley let out a sigh and rolled over to the door and opened it.

"Come on in." said a reluctant Bentley.

"Thank you," replied Carmelita. They both strode into the inner workings of the hideout with Bentley leading Carmelita into the kitchen.

"Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, water?" offered Bentley. Even though Bentley had been working ever so fervently to solve the riddle of his friend's vanishing, Carmelita had still been kind during that time and turning away a friend is something that Bentley just couldn't do, no matter the circumstances.

"Coffee would be nice, thanks," said Carmelita in a tone that was both thankful and sad at the same time.

"So, what's this good news that you apparently have?"

"Well, I have been scouting the crash site a bit more and I think I might have found something that'll interest you."

"What is it?"

As Bentley asked this, Carmelita reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a single stitch of blue and gold, seemingly intertwined with one another in an odd pattern reminiscent of a circuit board.

"I think it's a piece of Sly's shirt and collar, but in the weirdest pattern I've ever seen." Carmelita offered the stitching to Bentley to which Bentley took and inspected the cloth under his microscopic lenses built into his wheelchair. As he looked closer and closer, the turtle couldn't help but smile just a little bit. "What's so funny?" asked Carmelita, concerned for Bentley.

"Nothing," Bentley answered, still grinning.

"You're smiling, though."

"You wanna know why?" Bentley asked. Carmelita just stared at him, her brown eyes almost like scanners attempting to detect hints of madness behind her friend's glasses. Bentley leaned in close to the Inspector, his lips pursed as to only whisper the reason for his seemingly insane behavior. "He might still be alive."

"What?" Carmelita whispered back in shock. "How do you know?" she asked, intent on finding the method behind Bentley's madness. Bentley did not answer but instead chuckled to himself.

"That sneaky devil…"


	2. Ch 1 - Worlds Apart

**SLY COOPER AND THE DIMENSION KEY**

**Chapter 1: Worlds Apart**

The Egyptian desert was no place for any raccoon, let alone a master thief itching for action. Sly sat still on a stool in a canteen in town. He was a mystery for all who passed by, but there weren't too many people wanting to give him trouble.

Despite the explosion over 6 months ago and ending up in Egypt in a time unknown to him, Sly still had the thieving itch which he got to scratch now and again. The desert may have been a change in surroundings, but Sly was still a thief of the people. He always stole from corrupt slave traders and the like, liberating the innocent. His notoriety among the citizens of this town led to him earning the nickname "The Quiet One". It was a title he heard around town as a kind of Robin Hood, even though no one knew what a "Robin Hood" was in Ancient Egypt.

Luckily for Sly, he understood Arabic, both spoken and written. Well, sort of. He wasn't sure how, though. His father taught him some of the ancient Egyptian language to understand parts of the Thievius Racoonus, but it never truly stuck. His only working theory was that falling through time on Le Paradox's ship created some sort of side effect that let him interpret what he read and heard as English. In turn, no matter what he said in English was heard by the locals as Arabic or at least a language they understood.

Still, he stayed silent most of the time, only ever giving curt, short responses to people who might enlist him for his "talents" in the field. Sly didn't have anything on his plate today after stealing a rare set of jewels from a notorious slave trader in town by the name of Ali-Tupai.

"_Boy, was he ticked off._" Sly thought to himself while he slowly sipped on his glass of fresh juice. "_MMM, that's good._" As he sat there in the canteen, he was slowly drifting back to the first days of him violently arriving in Egypt. He started his first few days out in his regular clothes but realized quickly he had to blend in if he was going to survive. He had to shed his favorite blue and gold outfit for nothing but a simple Egyptian cloak and hood to shield his eyes from the sun. The only thing he kept was his mask. It was the one thing that tied him to his home in 21st century Paris and those whom he loved there. He desperately missed Bentley, Murray, and even Demetri a small bit. But above all, he missed Carmelita. He didn't know why, though. They had never really shared much of anything, save a few special moments including his brief stint as Constable. Were they soul mates, destined to be star-crossed lovers on opposite sides of the law? He hoped not. He was the first "Robin Hood", after all, that has to score him some credit. As he knocked back some more of his drink, Sly thought to himself, "_I just wish they were here already_."

. . .

"What do you mean he might still be alive, Bentley?" demanded Carmelita. Bentley had been practically ignoring her ever since she gave him the strip of cloth she found. However, Bentley did not seem to mind Carmelita's consistent questions because there was work to be done! He needed to reconfigure the temporal navigation circuit, adjust the nucleonic centrifugal generator, refuel the van, and so much more that needed to be done. "**BENTLEY!**" shouted Carmelita. She had enough of being left in the dark for too long and she had to show it. Bentley snapped out of his mechanical fever.

"What?!" shouted Bentley back at Carmelita.

"What do you mean 'he might still be alive'?" said Carmelita quietly and slowly, almost on the verge of tears.

"What about that don't you get?" retorted Bentley. Carmelita groaned in frustration. Seeing Carmelita's frustration, Bentley sighed and pulled out the whiteboard that he used for his old chalk talks. "Okay, here's what we know. There was an explosion six months ago when the blimp fell. We also know that Le Paradox was able to escape with Sly's paraglider and make it down, leaving Sly no option to get off the blimp."

"OK," Carmelita said in an understanding manner.

"We also know that we have not seen any sign of his body if he perished in the crash. I've run the math plenty of times to know the radius of where his body would've landed, and we've scouted that entire area already." Carmelita nodded in agreement. "So, where did his body go?"

"That's only the question we've been trying to answer for the last six months, Bentley. What's your point?" Carmelita asked intently.

"The point is we found something near the crash site that we haven't seen in those six months up until now. Not to mention, that piece of cloth has been mangled in the strangest pattern that no person has probably ever seen. The blimp's crash must've transported Sly someplace...sometime". Bentley waited for Carmelita's response quietly. But Carmelita just stared at him. The idea itself just sent her into shock, but then she resolved into a kind of quiet contemplation.

"_Is what he's saying really possible?" _thought Carmelita. _"I know we all want to believe Sly's alive, but..."_

"It's easier to believe he's dead, isn't it?" Bentley somberly asked. He looked at her with eyes also almost in tears. The veteran inspector was taken aback. That was exactly what she was thinking. For six months, the entire team had been bottling up their feelings about Sly's disappearance and his assumed death. Finding a theory and hoping that he's alive again just seemed to be...too much. "Well, I'm not giving up." Carmelita looked at him with surprise. "I've been through too much with him and Murray to _ever _give up on the possibility that he's still alive. We always fought for each other even when the odds were stacked against us. Murray saved me when Clock-La crushed my legs in Paris, I broke Sly and Murray out of the Contessa's prison, Sly stole your keys to free Murray in Canada."

"Still mad about that one," the inspector grumbled.

"The point is that we always fought for each other as well as with one another. I've put too much into this team...no, my _family _to give up now." Bentley declared. Carmelita just stood there. Part of her still thought the idea was a bit crazy, but more of her felt like she should've been ashamed. Ashamed that she gave in to thinking Sly was dead, ashamed that she thought that Bentley couldn't find him, and ashamed of herself for not trying everything in her power to get him back. No longer. Carmelita stood erect and faced Bentley with a kind of confidence she'd not felt in six months.

"Soooo...where do we start?"

. . .

As Sly was finishing off the last few sips of his drink, several hooded figures started to enter the canteen. They sure didn't seem friendly, judging from the freshly-polished gleam of their swords. "_These guys are trouble"_, thought Sly. There were 5 big brutes, each with odd masks and fists the size of basketballs. They all had a hand on the hilt of their sword, seemingly ready to strike at any moment. They weren't there to terrorize the customers, they were looking for someone. Sly's eyes shot around the room, scanning for anyone that could've been a target. Somebody was in trouble. Suddenly, the brutes shifted in their stance and moved hastily to one small individual in the back corner of the canteen. He was hooded like Sly, all by himself sipping gently on a cup of his juice, slightly tensed like he knew he was being looked for. "_He can't be much more than 12 years old. I have to do something"_, Sly thought. As he analyzed the room, the squad of strange soldiers forcefully pushed through the crowd of people towards the child. "_No time like the present," _thought Sly as he quickly but quietly rose from his chair.

"Get up, kid," ordered one of the fiends of the mysterious child. He stayed silent and still, though, no longer attending to his drink. "I said, _get up_!" the brute bellowed again.

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size for a change?" called out Sly from behind. "_I can't believe I just said that. It's such a cliché." _Sly said silently to himself. "_Well, I suppose it isn't a cliché _yet".

"Are you talking to me, _friend_?" the brute responded, turning to face Sly. "Our business with the kid is none of yours, I'm sure".

"Don't you think 'business' is too kind of a word for slavery?" Sly was feeling a bit cocky now, even if it was five against one. That's still five bumbling buffoons against one master thief. "_They don't stand a chance_".

"I suppose it is, stranger. But that still doesn't make it any of your business."

"Actually, I'm in the business of liberating slaves so _technically, _it _is._ Wanna see my business card?" said Sly as he leaped into the air, pulling his signature calling card out of his cloak and throwing it directly at the first of the five slavers, like a ninja's throwing star. The brute quickly moved out of the way, but not before the card could cut into his cheek as it whizzed by. As he stumbled back onto the wall of the canteen, the slaver felt his cheek and the blood that was drawn from it. He roared out in anger, picking himself up and called out.

"What are you standing around for? GET HIM!" he cried as he leaped into the fray himself, alongside his fearsome friends. He swung his arm at Sly, but the master thief dodged his attack with ease, sliding under him and then kicking one of the other slavers into and out of the wall of the canteen. Sly then quickly bounced off one of the tables, back towards the other slavers and swung at them with his cane. One of the slavers got his garb caught by the cane, which let Sly swing him around and hit one of the other brutes, knocking them both out cold. With Sly's cane now free of the slaver's shirt, he twirled it back around at hit one of the remaining slavers in the back of the head, paralyzing him. He fell onto one of the canteen's tables, smashing it to pieces with his giant body. Sly quickly went back into his first position, facing the last of the brutes. As fate would have it, it was the very same slaver that was stupid enough to start it all.

"And then there was one," Sly said ever so quietly, gritting his teeth.

"What _are _you?" whispered the last brute, now quivering in fear.

"Run along now," Sly said, ignoring the question. The slaver froze for a mere second, but then quickly stumbled out of the hole of the canteen's wall. Sly took a deep breath as he twirled his cane one last time before sheathing it within his cloak.

He motioned towards the child, who was now under his table. Sly grabbed the child's cup and handed it to him. "Are you alright?" The child just nodded. "Come on out of there. I promise not to hurt you." The child nodded again and slowly moved from the table, taking another sip from his cup. "What's your name?" asked Sly. The child set his cup down on the ground and removed his hood. The child had great big brown eyes and a coat of gray fur. His tail snaked out from behind the cloak with a familiar gray and black stripes pattern. After picking up his cup of juice, he quietly spoke his name to Sly.

"If it pleases you, sir, I am called Slytunkhamen".

…

"I'm still surprised that Murray took up wrestling", said Carmelita as she and Bentley drove down to Jean's Underground, where Murray was fighting that night. Bentley wasn't so surprised himself. It made a lot of sense. Sure he said he wanted to keep his strength up in case Sly ever was found, but Bentley knew it was also his way of coping with the loss of his friend.

Fighting others was just his way of working out his problems where Bentley liked to hide in his shell, both figuratively _and_ literally. It turned out to suit the big guy after all since he was in the top division of the underground circuit in France. Not too shabby.

"I don't know, Carmelita. Makes sense to me," replied Bentley. He sure missed Murray during the time they'd been apart, but Bentley was still pretty nervous too. Sharing any kind of information about Sly's disappearance and the possibility he was still alive might just dredge up all those feelings that Murray already had to process once. Twice might be too much. As the unlikely duo of Carmelita and Bentley pulled into the parking lot of Jean's Underground, the inspector nudged Bentley as he was about to get out.

"Are you sure he's gonna join us?" Carmelita asked nervously.

"He's family. Of course, he will." Bentley replied.

…

"Guys, I can't," Murray said stoically, shocking both Bentley and Inspector Fox to the point of both of their jaws practically hitting the floor.

"But…but…but" Bentley rebutted, trying to process Murray's denial.

"But nothing. I can't do it." Murray declined once again.

"I don't get it. Why won't you help us find Sly?" Carmelita asked. It made no sense how Murray could just so quickly cast aside their new information. Sure, they thought it might be surprising and maybe make Murray a bit emotional, but this was far beyond either of their expectations.

"It's pretty simple actually. He's dead." Murray curtly answered.

"Yeah we thought so too, but…" Carmelita said, trying to reason with the hulking hippo.

"BUT. NOTHING…AGAIN." Murray cut her off, almost bellowing in anger. "Sly's dead. Don't you get that? 6 months, you guys searched and you've found what? A weird stitch that _kinda _looks like Sly's clothes? That's IT? For all we know, that's a piece of Le Paradox's blimp or something. Even if Sly traveled in time like you said, how could he still be alive?" Murray was turning from his normal shade of pink to a hot red as he angrily tore up various things in his makeshift dressing room backstage. It was very obvious that every ounce of pain he'd been feeling since Sly's disappearance was coming out as concentrated anger.

"Murray, calm down," said Carmelita ever so gently, almost as if she were taming a wild animal.

"Don't tell me to calm down, cop hag!". Murray was done breaking stuff; he needed to break some faces. He lunged at Carmelita, aiming his fist directly at her jaw. Carmelita, although shocked, was able to jump on the wall of the room and bounced to the other side, drawing her trusty shock pistol and set it to "stun" all in one fluid motion. As she landed, she saw that Murray's missed punch connected with the drywall where she was standing just seconds before. There was a huge gaping hole that even the massive Murray easily could've fit through. Carmelita shook her nerves and aimed her pistol at the Cooper gang's brawny member. "What? Are you going to shoot me, Inspector?" Murray taunted as he drew his fist from the hole he just made, brushing his glove off with a cocky smirk.

"_He's sure gotten stronger."_ Carmelita thought as she started to clench her teeth and the trigger of her pistol, about to shock the living daylights out of this hippo hungry for a fight. "Don't make me pull the trigger, big guy. You know I don't want to do it." Carmelita said. Her police instincts were starting to kick back in, getting her ready for whatever attack he was going to try next.

"Really? Well, that sucks since the only way you're getting out of here without your face pounded in is if you do." Murray threatened as he inched ever closer to the Inspector. Carmelita tried to pull the trigger, but she couldn't. She couldn't bring herself to shock the bumbling brute. As short of a time they had all spent together in their time-traveling adventures, she respected Murray for his loyal friendship with Bentley and Sly, even though they were all thieves. "Aw, poor widdle fox can't even press a trigger on her widdle gun." Murray taunted again as he inched closer, now almost towering over her. "Come on! Do it! Pull the…" Murray stopped short his target, blinking several times, almost as if he was about to take a nap all of a sudden. His stance wavered and he started to stumble, lumbering forward towards Carmelita again. He was rendered unconscious somehow.

"AHHH!" Carmelita yelled as she closed her eyes and put up her arms to try and stop the hippo from coming any further. As Murray dozed and fell forward, two robotic arms suddenly wrapped around his limp body, levitating him inches away from the almost-pancaked Interpol officer. As Carmelita realized what happened, she opened her eyes to see Murray's face being pulled away from her own as he was moved away. The robotic arms laid Murray down gently on a couch that was shockingly unharmed in the scuffle and quickly unraveled and retracted back into the wheelchair of Bentley. Her eyes met Bentley's as he sat there solemnly. "Thanks, Bentley," Carmelita said softly.

"Don't mention it," Bentley replied as he pushed another button on his wheelchair's handle, retracting his dart gun, still smoking from the tranquilizer blast he just shot to sedate his best friend. "Do me a favor and put those handcuffs on him." requested Bentley.

"Sure." Answered Carmelita, still in shock from what had taken place just moments before. As she cuffed him, Bentley started to search around. "What are you looking for?" Bentley didn't respond. He just kept searching, turning the entire room upside down. "Bentley…what are you _looking _for?" Carmelita repeated, getting really tired of being ignored.

"A reason! I'm looking for a reason." Bentley responded, still solemn about having to tranquilize Murray, but almost growing in anger at the thought that it ever had to come to that in the first place. "Here! Found it," exclaimed Bentley.

"Found what?" asked Carmelita still confused. Bentley held a plastic bag half-full of a red, powdery substance that the Cooper gang knew of all too well.

"Spice. Murray's been given illegal spice."


	3. Ch 2 - The Student Who Became Master

**DISCLAIMER: Hey guys, I'm continuing to add to this chapter so it will be updated a few times. I'll be sure to timestamp each change so you know when there's something more to read. Like today!**

**UPDATED: 11/4/19**

**Chapter 2: The Student Who Became Master**

"S-Slytunkhamen?" stuttered Sly. He couldn't believe it. Standing before him was the first recorded Cooper of the entire clan, master of invisibility and the originator of the Thievius Raccoonus…and he just saved his life.

"Is everything alright, sir?" the young Slytunkhamen asked, curious about why his name had suddenly unnerved "The Quiet One". Sly had to think fast. He couldn't tell him about the future, not so early in the clan's timeline. They managed to keep everything intact fighting Le Paradox, but Sly knew that was a major lucky strike.

"_Get your act together, ringtail," _thought Sly. _"You're freaking the kid out. Say something!" _

"Yeah, I'm good. Great name, kid," muttered Sly, shaking his head to relieve the shock. If Slytunkhamen was here, there had to be more Cooper ancestors around.

"Is your family close by?" Sly asked. The young Slytunkhamen shook his ahead.

"They're gone. Murdered." Slytunkhamen uttered quietly as tears slowly trickled down his cheeks. Sly couldn't help but feel disappointed, but that feeling was quickly outweighed with sympathy for his young ancestor.

"_He's still just a kid right now,"_ thought Sly. _"I practically went through the same thing, except I had friends to get me through it all_."

"What happened?" Sly asked. With Slytunkhamen still wiping away his tears, he recounted the whole story.

"Both my parents were grain harvesters," began Slytunkhamen. "They had the most fruitful crops in our village and we always had more than enough. Everyone would say we were the 'most favored family in all the land'. Because we were so fortunate, we chose to bless others as well and gave food to the hungry and money to the poor." Slytunkhamen couldn't help but smirk with a sense of pride in his family's generosity, one that Sly returned for a similar sense of pride. But the smile quickly turned sour as he continued.

"And that's when they came."

"When who came?"

"The Dune Riders: a band of miscreants, thieves, and murderers based in Cairo. They would make a habit of going to small villages around Egypt, pillaging and killing for entertainment. It didn't take long for them to find out about my 'blessed' family and they set out to make an example of us." Tears of anger started welling up in his eyes.

"My father had just come home from the market to see his family's home in ruin and begged for mercy," Slytunkhamen said, closing his eyes as if he was reliving it all over again.

"That's when they struck him down," he said as his teeth gritted with a young rage. "Mother went to hold him and tend to his wounds but when she did, the Riders killed her too."

Sly's heart started to break all over again. The Fiendish Five practically did the same thing to his parents, except _they_ were trying to destroy the legacy that Slytunkhamen created along with them by taking the Thievius Raccoonus. He could still those haunting words uttered by that demonic owl, Clockwerk.

"_I wanted to show the world that without your precious book, the Cooper line was nothing._"

The memory alone was enough to make Sly's teeth grit in anger again. The bird already died twice and he still couldn't quite shake the awful memory. Lost in thought, Sly heard a young voice call out to him.

"SIR!" shouted Slytunkhamen. Sly suddenly woke up from the mini-trance he put himself in.

"Are you alright?" the young Cooper asked.

"I'm fine, I guess. I was just remembering my own family. They were murdered too," Sly answered quietly. Slytunkhamen nodded understandingly.

"It makes me so angry sometimes how those brutes kill mercilessly and answer to no one for it. It's not fair," Slytunkhamen said, getting red with anger again.

"I just wish more people were like you, standing up to bullies like those slavers." Sly couldn't help but chuckle.

"I'm the way I am because when my parents were killed, I was left as the only of my family's legacy," Sly said. "I had to reclaim it…for them. That's why I fight…because I _have_ to. Guys like the Dune Riders are a dime a dozen where I'm from. Somebody has to take them down. Might as well be me." Sly turned around to walk away from his ancestor. He figured the more he talked to his ancestor, the more risk he put at his clan being erased from history for good.

As his back was turned, Slytunkhamen felt something growing inside of him. He wasn't sure what it was, but it only could've been described as determination. He admired Sly in a way and sort of felt connected to him, although he couldn't explain why. He sat down on the sand, crossed his legs, and called out to Sly.

"Master, please teach me".

. . .

It was silent in the van on the way back to the hideout. Bentley was pretty furious that someone would take advantage of Murray like that, forcing him to ingest spice for whatever stupid reason.

Was it money? Probably. Murray only hit the wrestling circuit to work out his issues with Sly's disappearance and keep in shape when the time came that they would need to get back in action. Maybe that wasn't enough for somebody. They wanted him to fight, so they needed him angry? What kind of monster would do such a thing? While he pondered, he rolled the van over a bump at pretty high speeds which caused the whole van to practically fly for a second. **_WHOOOSH-_BOOM!**

"WHATWHOWHENWHEREWHYHUH?" yelled a dramatically confused Murray from the back part of the van where he'd been enjoying a nice sleep-dart-induced nap. His yell startled Carmelita and Bentley so much that they were inspired to scream in surprise themselves.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" they cried as Carmelita brought her shock pistol around to train it back on Murray.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" screamed Murray as he shot his hands up in immediate surrender to whoever who was about to shoot him with a shock pistol. As he finished, all that could be heard was a loud panting sound. Everybody was exhausted from all the screaming.

Thankfully, they were all able to calm down after realizing that Murray wasn't in any kind of enraged state. Bentley breathed a sigh of relief in knowing that he was right about Murray's condition. Somebody fed him spice to get him angry and they had a reason.

While he was thankful his friend wasn't a real raging maniac, Bentley couldn't help but return to a slight somberness. Spice or no spice, Murray could've been right. Sly could be gone for good and they were just trying to hold on to some kind of hope that would eventually crash and burn. They were all quiet again for a few more miles.

That's when Murray decided to break the silence once more after tapping gently on Bentley's shell.

"…yuh…you got anything to eat, pal?" Murray asked kindly. Although he probably shouldn't have been surprised by Murray's honest question, Bentley was. He didn't answer him. Same old Murray. Always concerned about what was in his stomach. Absolutely ridiculous. It was enough to make Bentley start chuckling.

"What'd I say?" asked Murray, starting to chuckle himself. The two friends kept chuckling, getting louder as they kept driving. Sure enough, after a while, they glanced over to the Inspector to see her chuckling along with them.

It didn't take long before all three of them just started laughing. It was as if somebody set off a can of laughing gas in the back seat and everybody just inhaled a heaping amount of it. It felt good to let it all go.

Bentley eventually had to pull over the van just so they could get it all out of their systems. He was pretty sure that neither he nor Murray had laughed that hard since that time he broke them out of the Contessa's prison way back when. It wasn't anything really to laugh about, but it was more about a return to a sense of normalcy. Sly's disappearance hit hard, but Bentley and Murray were still family. Even the intrepid Inspector Fox seemed to be part of it all, too.

As the laughs died down, they started trading stories of their collective pasts; different angles and details of past jobs and chases they'd all been involved with. They talked about everything from the Clockwerk fight in Russia to the aftermath of Rajan's gala in India to the crispy chicken wedding in China between Carmelita and General Tsao.

Bentley and Murray were guffawing over Carmelita's story of when she put Tsao behind bars. Apparently, she decided to teach the jerk chicken a lesson by throwing him in with two rhinos from a known spice cartel from Barcelona. She said the only thing she could hear as she walked away was the sound of Tsao bawling for his mother hen.

Bentley and Murray returned the favor by sharing how they impersonated Neyla using the wiretap and voice modulator back in Prague to tell her mercenary team they were serving under "the sharpest tea kettle in the entire Wild West" and how proud they should be to serve under Her majesty. Carmelita howled in hysterics at the idea and wiped happy tears from her eyes at the thought of her former partner. It was the only time she ever was happy to remember her.

After a while, they all sat and smiled. It was probably the first time any of them had laughed since Sly had been gone. It was needed. As sad as they all were about the situation, the memories of their past together was enough to get them through the rest of the evening.

. . .


End file.
